I've noticed a trend away from brides registering for fine china, possibly due to the decrease in home entertaining. Am I the only one who loves fine china?

I have been drooling over a set of Bernaudaud china (Palmyre -- plain white bone china with a thin gold band), and I love mixing in more vivid patterns for accents.

Anyone else?

no, you're definitely not. all of the ladies in my family collect dishes, crystal, & china. I even have a set of dishes that I inherited from my grandma as well as a few pieces of her fine china. my mom has enough of her fine china pattern to give each of us 3 girls 8 complete place settings plus tons of serving pieces. I have 2 sets (not complete) of vintage fine china & many vintage serving pieces.

Oh, most definitely yes!

One of my favourite pastimes when travelling is to trawl through homewares stores that have beautiful china.

I am particularly drawn to tea sets - beautiful pots, matching cups... sigh. :-)

I have 6 place settings of my parents' china (minus some pieces that broke through the years, plus some serving pieces). They are white china with a gold rim, and etchings of japanese trees in gold and silver in the middle. A little worn, but still the most beautiful china I've ever seen. There are condiment dishes, napkin rings, milk glasses, vases.... Just beautiful.

I don't need anything else.

Jesssh, I love the simplicity of that pattern!

I love to set a beautiful table informal or not..

Jesssh this is a lovely pattern...

If I only had the place for it, I would get it in a heart beat but we live in a 1 bedroom apartment with kitchenette. Someday though.

My everyday dishes are crate and barrel white pearl bone china



when i got married I registered for Vera Wang Grosgrain



when my grandma died she had 3 sets of china and I got one of them. It is white with a gold trim. right now I do not have the space to store it so it is packed away but the plan is to one day move to a place with more storage and unpack the china. I will mix and match my vera wang with grandma's.

I grew up with my mother as well as grandmother using their fine china for family gatherings. When I was getting married, I couldn't wait to finally get my "starter" china for our home. I obsessed over the Kate Spade collection, and it was the first thing I registered for. Since the wedding day, I have used it for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners over at our home.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one! Thanks to everyone who responded, especially those who took the time to post pics.

My everyday china is Royal Doulton's Water Lily (Sadly discountinued in 2008). -- PICS 1 & 2

My fine china is a combination of:
* Anna Weatherley's Simply Anna - dinner plates (pic 4)
* Versace Flower Fantasy - dessert/salad plates (pic 4)
* Bernardaud Palmyre - bread & butter, soup plates, other completer pieces (pic 3).

I like using plain white with gold china for the majority of pieces; that way I can add in fun dessert plates or dinner plates if I want.

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

I've noticed a trend away from brides registering for fine china, possibly due to the decrease in home entertaining. Am I the only one who loves fine china?

My brother got married in december and he and his fiance registered for honeymoon stuff. They did not want anything related to the home, especially china. They had a couples shower with a theme of stock the bar so they begrudgingly registered for some drink related items from crate & barrel so they could at least get stuff they liked. They entertain very casually, they like fun and colorful paper goods.

I'm joining this thread. I love fine china and crystal too.

For everyday use, I use the Donna Hay for Royal Doulton.

I can't say I have a 'good dinner set'. No where to store it and I don't entertain too much at the moment.

I do have a set of Bvlgari corone tribale breakfast cups and saucers, dessert plates, sugar bowl and milk jug. They have been out away for now too. Mister 3.5 is just that.. 3.5 .

Originally Posted by StylishFarmer

I do have a set of Bvlgari corone tribale breakfast cups and saucers, dessert plates, sugar bowl and milk jug. They have been out away for now too. Mister 3.5 is just that.. 3.5 .

Ooh. Pics?

I'm really enjoying everyone's china! Doreen, your selection of dishes is GORGEOUS! I love how they look together. And those waterlily dishes...I'm speechless, I luv 'em.

Needloub & Jessh--I love the gracious simplicity of the patterns, they're so similar. Jessh, are those vintage?

Coutreinatl: I love the Vera Wang silver-rimmed design. Very elegant. And I like the white everyday china too.

I have two china stories.

My mom, the glass hoarder, has been reminding me for years that she is "counting on her daughter" to give a good home to her beloved china set, purchased one frugal piece at time during the 1950s. Now I've never been totally crazy about it, but it's o.k. Each dish has a little sprig of very subdued-looking 1950s pink roses. But I've thought o.k., I'll take it with gratitude because it will remind me of my mom. And I've never bought china, I mean real china, because of this, because she has been promising me her set for my entire lifetime.

So one day I was in JoAnn Fabrics and found this gorgeous, rather high-quality upholstery fabric with my mom's china print on it!! It was all the 1950s pink roses in heavy-duty upholstery-weight cotton! Better still, it was only $1/yard!! So I bought every bit of it that I could.

I held onto the fabric for years, figuring that once my mom, the hoarder, finally gave me her china set, I would reupholster the dining room chairs, and maybe make a few pillows and table runners too, and everything would match and it would look very cool. Alas, the china never materialized. I heard all sorts of excuses from mom. The upholstery on my dining room chairs began to fade. Finally, after having held onto the fabric for 10 years I figured what the heck, and used it to reupholster the dining room chairs. I also used it to make cushions for one of the livingroom chairs.

I told my mom "Look! I've reupholstered everything in my dining room with fabric in your china pattern!" <hint, hint> "Imagine how terrific your china will look on the table!" Well, she wasn't terribly impressed. And, being someone who holds onto things forever, she doesn't seem to want to give up her china anymore even when I remind her that I've reupholstered everything in my dining room in anticipation.

Here is my second china story.

When DH and I were getting married I didn't want to register because I wanted everyone to give us money for our house downpayment instead. But I really wanted a set of china, or at least something that looked sorta like good china, so.... There's this mailorder company called Domestications which is still around. They were selling china sets for $100. This included 12 full place settings, cups, saucers, large desert plates (nearly as big as dinner plates), serving dishes, creamer and sugar, soup bowls, platters, serving bowls in a variety of sizes, and a teapot. I sent them my money.

In returned I received this HUGE box with a brightly-colored hot pink set in an antique pattern directly from China. Alas, the paint on some of the pieces was badly smeared. So...I created a careful catalog of the smeared-looking pieces, shipped back just the smeared pieces with a careful letter, and...Domestications sent me ANOTHER complete set with 12 place settings, the teapot, the serving platters, the whole shebang. So I ended up with 24 place settings.

At that point a friend of my mom's, a fellow hoarder, gave me a HUGE set of vintage Currier & Ives blue-and-white dishware, the kind you'd buy one-piece-a-week at the grocery store in the 1950s. Assumedly because I hadn't registered. This set had multiple butter dishes, ashtrays, gravy boats, covered dishes, dozens of plates and teacups, serving platters big enough for a 30 lb turkey, etc.

In a happy coincidence, the set looks quite beautiful when paired with the Domestications ultra-cheap hot pink china.

As life would have it, we throw a lot of big pot-lucks for our neighbors, friends and families. Ones for which we easily get 50-75 guests. I just pull out all the "china" and I always have enough. I never have to resort to paper plates. And I don't care whether anything gets broken.